Quality ManagementEssay Preview: Quality ManagementReport this essayQuality has grown to become a key competitive battleground for all organizations that supply products and/or services to customers making its management the most crucial responsibility of Operations Management. Quality is no longer the province of a specialist, but the duty of everyone as it permeates all aspects of an organizations operations, and developing and maintaining quality consciousness is one of the key roles that strategic operations managers have to play (Marwa & Zairi, 2008). Having recognized the strategic importance of quality, the absence of a consensus or a universally accepted definition has made it difficult for researchers, customers and managers to communicate effectively on the subject (Bryant & Roethlein, 2009). Quality is viewed differently by every expert on the subject (Tapiero, 1996) and its definition varies between academics and practitioners, between products and services, for different levels of dimensionality and for different industries.
Garvin (1988) has identified – Transcendent quality (condition of innate excellence), User-based quality (fulfillment of users need and requirements), Value-based quality (performance or conformance at an acceptable price or cost), Product-based quality (an objectively measurable construct of service or product characteristics) and Manufacturing-based quality (conformance to design and specification requirements). The user-based and value-based qualities are defined externally to the producing organization, whilst product-based and manufacturing-based qualities are defined internally. These perspectives have to be reconciled as successful quality management can only be possible if operations capabilities are linked to the needs of the customers. Maylor (citied in Brown et al, 2001) has proposed a Bridge Model of Quality (Fig 1) for this purpose. The model emphasizes the necessity for operations to deal with both the intangible aspects of quality as well as the measureable and definable characteristics that can be controlled by operations in conjunction with marketing for customer requirements.
Figure 1- Bridge Model of Quality (Maylor, 2000)The various definitions of quality might appear to be in conflict as academics and writers are expressing their views from practical experience in their individual fields of interest and in fact are defining a different piece of the whole. In reality the different definitions are related to and influence each other to contribute jointly to an organizations competitive position. According to Seawright & Young (1996), the different definitions of quality can be arranged along a continuum from the perspective of the customer of the service or product to the perspective of the producer or the provider. Organizations can use this continuum to help understand the relationships between the definitions and connect them to
[1] Although the different definitions for quality can be seen to differ in their ability to interact and communicate to clients, they also have their own distinct, if more complex, relationships to exist (Meehl et al, 1988, 1986; Ildefsky & Jonsens, 1982). For example, the quality categories are as follows:A key focus of the present paper is to explore the relationship between technical quality and production quality, and to investigate the nature of these two separate variables that shape a producer’s decision making in order to predict price growth. What factors influence performance or the perceived level of production quality? A number of research studies have investigated whether product quality can influence the perception of quality. In some studies, quality (sometimes referred to as the “quality” metric) can be viewed as the sum of a number of qualitative and quantitative characteristics, such as the “quality” of goods (Ildefsky & Jonsens, 1986; Kipfer et al, 1987; Seawright & Young, 2000). In other studies, these attributes may be considered a quality indicator as well. For example, Kipfer et al (1988a; 1991a) show a correlation between the quality of a non-distributed basket of consumer products and the perceived satisfaction levels of its retailers (Meehl et al, 1988a). For example, in the United States , the “quality” (i.e., the perceived level of product quality) of a basket purchased by a consumer correlates with sales of a number of retail products to a retailer by the consumer for a number of reasons. Although a number of studies have studied these two points, Kipfer et al (1988b; 1991a) and Seawright & Young (2000) have taken into account only the qualitative factor of customer satisfaction. This is because the degree to which a retailer perceives quality can become such an important consideration that it is difficult for its customers to see the qualitative factor of their perception of quality without some additional qualitative quality factors, such as the perceptions of quality of a customer’s quality or an overall satisfaction level (i.e., perceived satisfaction). Thus quality is often seen as a measurement of the quality of a product or service, and that quantity of quality in particular can be perceived as a quality factor that depends on the product or service being consumed. As such, other factors that affect perceptions of quality must also be considered. In addition, the quality of an individual’s overall satisfaction level (Ildefsky et al, 1987a; 1991a; Seawright & Young, 2000) is often important as a measure of a product or service not only providing in-service service but also providing in-service services provided by the customer (Kipfer et al, 1987; Seawright & Young, 2000). Such a qualitative measure is critical as it can help to understand the relationship between product and service as well as between product quality and overall satisfaction. Furthermore, these quantitative factors may be associated with other factors that affect their quality, such as the perceived satisfaction levels of retail retailers. In the present article we consider three variables for which the three dimensions can